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According to a court order, the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) has to delete a tweet by one of its press spokesmen for the AfD.

The Berlin administrative court partially granted a corresponding urgent application by the party on Wednesday, as the court announced.

The tweet of January 28th was about the ongoing review of whether the AfD is classified as a suspected case by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

(Ref. VG 1 L 127/21)

In the tweet, the BMI spokesman published statements by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) on the "status of the BfV report on the AfD".

The report is "examined from a legal point of view", there are "no political guidelines", but Seehofer "wants to have clarity in the foreseeable future".

With the tweet, the Federal Ministry of the Interior intervened in the freedom of parties, the administrative court now found.

The ministry said with the tweet "with objective understanding" that the AfD was "a test case of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution".

As a result, equal opportunities in political competition are significantly reduced, the court ruling said.

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Even the classification of the AfD as a test case, according to a survey carried out by the party, means that the willingness to vote for the AfD falls by 15 percent.

The interference is not justified because there is neither a legal basis for this in the Federal Constitutional Protection Act nor the conditions under which state agencies are allowed to conduct information and public relations work.

Because the state is denied to identify with individual parties and to use the state resources and possibilities available to it for their benefit or burden.

An appeal against the court decision is possible at the Higher Administrative Court Berlin-Brandenburg.

In another legal dispute, the Düsseldorf Administrative Court decided that the AfD regional association of North Rhine-Westphalia should not be publicly called a "test case".

After the judgment served on Wednesday, the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD successfully sued to have the unlawfulness of statements made by the North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), among others, in court.

These statements were made in 2019.